Staying Optimistic (The Flip-Side)

Well, if I wasn't sure about Peace Corps making you bi-polar before, I am 100% sure now. These last few days have been really awesome, and it seems really weird to think that just one week ago I was having a really hard time. So many great things have happened lately! And all in a great big chain of wonderful events. Let me explain:

It all started when Szasha came over this weekend. In an effort to spend less money, we decided to try not going to Tete City this week and instead, we hung out here in my town. We cooked lots of food, watched movies, hung out with my neighbors, and played game after game of my new favorite game, Bananagrams. I could play Bananagrams all day, every day, and not tire of it.

Because Szasha and I were in my town and had lots of time to cook, we made brigadeiros, a typically Brazilian chocolatey dessert ball covered in sprinkles. In an effort to make up for last week's anti-social behavior on my part, and say thanks for all their help so far, I gave some to my neighbors. They were really happy! Sweet!

As a consequence of my gift-giving my neighbors gave me a piece of bolo, or cake, in return. It was more like a little biscuit -- and delicious -- and the best part is, it turns out that there's a woman in my town who sells them every day! So now I have a new food that I can regularly eat for breakfast, with peanut butter, jelly, or chocolate spread. Yeah!

Because of my delicious breakfast this morning, I was in a really good mood when I went to school and had an excellent lesson with my tenth graders. Due to many canceled classes, this was only the 2nd time I had ever seen my tenth graders, so we were very far behind and it made me nervous. But they were so attentive and great that we got through almost everything that we were supposed to have done in the last three weeks in one lesson! Score! The professor who was supposed to teach them the period before didn't show (not uncommon) and thus we started and finished class early. Even better!

Since I finished class early, I had time to stop by my director's office and say hi. I found there both my director and pedagogical director, and we had a really great conversation about what the school's goals are for the near future and the possibility of getting a second volunteer here. This is something I'd really like to push for, because we're down three teachers at the moment and the kids just don't get schooling in those subjects until a teacher can be found. Mozambique has a severe teacher shortage. Plus, the school is growing quickly and I am already pushing the boundaries on the number of classes I can teach -- if we add any more English classes we're going to need another teacher. Not to mention that my school is opening up a computer lab next year, and teaching Informatica in addition to English is something I'd definitely be up for, if there's someone else to take up the slack. Plus,Peace Corps is looking to expand their presence in Tete, and it goes without saying that I'd love nothing more than to have another volunteer here in town.

It was a very uplifting conversation, and I still made it home earlier than usual! And you know what the cream of the crop was? This is what I came home to at the end of the day.

Double rainbow, all the way across the sky! Yeah!

It might even be a triple rainbow!